


Young Couple Arguing in IKEA, 2016 (Mixed Media)

by hollycomb



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anxiety Attacks, Bathroom Sex, Dirty Talk, Endearments, Furniture Shopping, IKEA, M/M, Moving In Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-04
Updated: 2016-11-04
Packaged: 2018-08-28 22:44:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8465791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollycomb/pseuds/hollycomb
Summary: Ren drags Hux to IKEA and asks him what he thinks about cacti. Hux does his best to avoid a full nervous breakdown.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is also a present for [@thissisatitle](http://thissisatitle.tumblr.com/), who mentioned Hux and Ren fighting in IKEA on Twitter, thank you again for the inspiration ;)) <3
> 
>  
> 
> **

Hux is thirty-four years old and has never had a roommate. Even in college he’d been considered special enough to earn a private residence in the dorms straight away. Now he’s agreed to move in with not just a roommate but with someone he can no longer deny as his boyfriend, after five months of being in a near-constant sex fog that has probably caused him to entirely lose his mind. 

The reality of the situation hits him with a fresh influx of panic when Ren pulls his father’s beater pickup into the IKEA parking lot. The entire cabin shakes as the truck lurches into the lot, making Hux feel for a moment like he is certainly going to throw up. 

“What the fuck, what the fuck,” Ren mutters as they cruise through the lot, finding no spaces. It’s very bright out, an uncomfortably hot afternoon in early autumn, and the enormous lot seems to be entirely full, cars packed tightly under the glare of the sun. “Why is this fucker so crowded on a Wednesday?” Ren asks. 

As if Hux knows. He’s never been to one of these things before. He wanted to order the furniture they need online, but Ren insisted they come here. Hux had to concede that this place carries furnishings more within their meagre budget than the sites he’d had in mind. 

“There’s a space,” Hux says, but when they pull closer they see that a motorcycle is parked there.

“Who takes a fucking motorcycle to IKEA?” Ren glowers at the bike like he’s thinking about getting out and kicking it over. He seems on edge, even less patient than usual, so of course he chose this as the day and time to insist they shop for furniture. Hux is tired of sleeping on a mattress on the floor and eating cross-legged on the living room carpet, but he doesn’t like to make hasty decisions, and decor is important to him. He highly doubts he’ll find anything to his taste inside this giant toybox of a building, and he again mourns the carefully selected pieces that he lost when he sold his last home fully furnished after the change of fortune that eventually left him despairing alone at the gay bar where he met Ren. Hux had felt like he had nothing left to lose, and therefore had ended up back at the apartment that Ren shared with his cousin and her husband, indulging in what he had assumed would be a reckless one night stand. It was reckless indeed, but Hux was somehow still there three days and approximately nineteen fucks later. That descent into hedonism has now brought him here, circling an IKEA parking lot and trying not to vomit with spiking anxiety that reminds him acutely of the panic attacks he suffered during his trial. 

“I think I need to get out,” Hux says, gripping the seat with both hands. 

“Get out? What? Why?” Ren is scowling at the unrelenting rows of cars as they roll slowly down yet another sun-baked aisle, oblivious to Hux’s rising distress. 

“I’ll walk to the front doors,” Hux says. “I’ll meet you there, after you’ve found a place--”

“Why?” Ren turns to Hux, and his expression changes when he sees the tension in Hux’s shoulders and the look on his face. “Baby,” Ren says, reaching over to squeeze Hux’s thigh. 

Hux scowls, though no amount of doing so has dissuaded Ren from calling him that during their five months together, perhaps because it happens most often when Hux is sobbing in pleasure while being fucked. It’s far less annoying under those circumstances. 

“You’ll get a sunburn if you walk all the way there,” Ren says, and he reaches up to rub the back of Hux’s neck in a protective fashion. It’s true that he burns easily, especially there. “Put the window down, take a deep breath.” 

“Don’t talk to me like I’m a child. I’m just-- It’s-- I told you, places like this set me on edge.”

“Like this? Parking lots?”

“Megastores! Or whatever you call them.” 

Ren smiles as if the term megastores is adorable, or perhaps inaccurate. Hux has lived in this country since he came over for university and is still sensitive about being told that he used a colloquial term incorrectly. He turns away from Ren, lifting his shoulder to shrug his hand off, though the way Ren was rubbing the back of his neck felt embarrassingly good, like everything Ren does to him. Ren’s hands are so big that they startle Hux at times, and his strength feels mythic, powered by some unseen force beyond his massive body. Hux knows Ren’s physique is merely the result of gym rat habits combined with genetic advantage, but he’s never before been with someone who can lift him off the ground as if he weighs nothing. Before Ren, he never would have expected to like it.

There wasn’t much at all in the way of romance or even sex in Hux’s life before he lost everything and Ren came along to collect his wasted remains in the aftermath. Hux only had time for work, misdeeds assigned to him at work, constant paranoia about getting caught, and drinking himself to sleep most nights. Now he’s been unleashed into the world of messy emotional decision-making and nothing he’s done since opening his lips and his legs for Ren will function as a long term plan, but he couldn’t say no when Ren proposed that they move in together. He doesn’t like being away from Ren, though Ren is everything that Hux should find obnoxious in even small doses. It doesn’t seem to matter. Hux thinks he must be in love, because it’s the most panic-inducing thing he’s experienced in thirty-four years and yet he wants to stay here, just as he is, with Ren, for as long as he can. 

“There you go,” Ren says, rubbing Hux’s thigh while he steers the truck with his other hand. “Just breathe, we’re gonna find a space.”

“It’s not the parking. This place is going to make me feel insane, I can tell.” 

“We’ll be in and out in a hour, maybe less. We’ve got our list, right? We know exactly what we need. I’ll do the heavy lifting. You can pick out all the colors.” 

Hux snarls at him. Ren just grins and putters the truck forward, around the corner and down another row of filled-up spaces. Two rows later, when Hux’s breath has begun to feel shallow again, they finally wedge the truck into an empty space and climb out. 

“Are you hungry?” Ren asks. He’s sheltering the back of Hux’s neck from the sun with his big hand as they walk toward the store. 

“A little,” Hux says. “We’ll have to drop our purchases off at the house before we get lunch.” 

“They have a cafeteria here. It’s good.” 

“Good?” Hux makes a face. “Don’t they make meatballs from horses, or something ghastly like that?”

“Uh, they might have, but not anymore. I don’t think.” 

“I’ll pass, thanks.” 

A sense of agitated chaos not unlike a theme park pervades the lobby as soon as they enter on the ground floor. Hux feels himself standing too close to Ren on the escalator that takes them upstairs, but he doesn’t correct himself. He’s had some issues with crowds since pushing through a rabid sea of reporters and jeering onlookers following his trial. He refuses to become a shut-in, and continues to adhere to his late father’s edict that any weakness can be conquered if faced head on. But he lets Ren take his hand as they pass into the initial crush of noise and clutter at the start of the showroom area. 

“Shouldn’t we go directly to the warehouse part?” Hux asks, trying to tug Ren away from the showrooms and the people who are meandering through them. 

“The bath mats and stuff are this way, though,” Ren says. 

“No, I think-- Isn’t there a shortcut, away from this madhouse?” 

“It’s not a madhouse, look. Maybe we’ll get some good ideas.” 

“But we have a list.” 

“We don’t have to stick to the list religiously.” Ren pulls Hux toward a space much smaller than the house they’re renting, optimized to contain a kitchen, bedroom and living area within some miniscule amount of square feet. “Look at this,” Ren says, grinning like he’s never seen a loft bed before. This one is surrounded by long, gauzy curtains that some rowdy children who shouldn’t be running around unsupervised are playing in, shrieking as they pursue each other. “Isn’t this cool?” Ren says. “It’s kinda hot,” he says more quietly, close to Hux’s ear. 

“What is hot about a loft bed?”

“Shh,” Ren says, presumably for the sake of these idiot children, who aren’t paying attention to anything beyond their game anyway, nearly crashing into Ren’s legs. Typical. Where are the parents? “I meant the curtains,” Ren says. “What do you think about a tall bed frame thing? Wouldn’t that be cool, like, if we hung heavy red curtains around it?”

“No.” Hux scoffs. “What are you talking about? We picked out a bedframe, the-- What do you call it, the Maelstrom or something like that--”

“You’ve never fantasized about being fucked on a bed surrounded by curtains?” Ren asks, murmuring this directly into Hux’s ear. “Like in a cheesy novel?”

“Cheesy is right. No, come on, this whole setup is absurdly twee, I hate it.” 

“Of course you do,” Ren says, his face falling. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hux asks, following him away.

“Nothing.” 

Hux opens his mouth to press the subject, but decides this is neither the place nor time to do so. He’s feeling too fragile in this environment already, and doesn’t want to hear Ren again imply that he’s no fun when they’re out together in public. They have plenty of fun together in bed, without the need of curtains or any other particularly dramatic props. Not everything is about fun, or about fucking, for that matter. 

At least, Hux doesn’t want it to be only about that between them. He’d assumed the invitation to move in with Ren was about more than Ren having easier access to his ass at all hours. At moments he’s confident that Ren is in love with him, too, usually when Ren is screaming his name during sex or nuzzling at him in the trembling aftermath, but since moving in with Ren two weeks ago he’s also been experiencing instances of intense paranoia wherein he’s sure that Ren regrets the arrangement now that he’s seen how Hux shops for groceries and wipes the rim of the sink dry after every use. Hux doesn’t see what’s so hilarious about doing so. It prevents unsightly watermarks. 

“How do you feel about cacti?” Ren asks when they’re shuffling past some fake ones in clay pots that are arranged atop a low white cabinet. 

“I have no strong feelings about them,” Hux says.

Ren snorts and shakes his head, pawing at the fake spikes. 

“What?”

“Nothing.” 

“No, go on. How am I supposed to feel about cacti? What response were you hoping for, to such an inane question?”

Hux realizes how loudly he’s speaking when he notices a nearby woman staring at him. When she turns away abruptly his face gets hot and he staggers against Ren’s back, afraid she might have recognized him from the news. Ren says he’s crazy, it was almost nine months ago and Hux was such a minor player in the company’s fraud that he didn’t even have to serve any prison time for his involvement, thank fuck, but Ren doesn’t know what it’s like having red hair. Hux stood out among the accused, despite getting only a wrist slap of probation that has nevertheless ruined his career. 

“What’s the matter?” Ren asks, turning from some cheap-looking bowls he’d been fondling. “Are you really freaking out?” 

Hux leans away when Ren tries to touch his face. He doesn’t like it being called _freaking out_ , especially when he’s working so hard to maintain his composure. He’s fine, anyway. It’s just a matter of letting the panic crest and dissolve. There’s nothing to be done about it.

“Do you need to leave?” Ren asks, a bit flatly, as if he might stay here regardless. 

“No.” Hux tries to stop glowering; it’s difficult at times. “Let’s just head toward the bath mats and such, please. You know I don’t like browsing.”

Ren loves browsing. Early on, many of their dates were just that: browsing weekend art shows, browsing kitschy shops full of useless trinkets with to-go coffees in hand, and even browsing in a musty, pretentiously outfitted old record shop, which was when Hux finally broke down and confessed that he hates browsing, has no nostalgia for vintage forms of technology, and gets terribly anxious at art shows, with the artist sitting right there and peering at you hopefully as you browse their wares. Ren had seemed hurt, as if Hux had insulted some aspect of his personality, which Hux supposes he did, though that wasn’t his intent. He just so deeply hates wasting time, and wishes Ren would have let him order all this shit from bed. They could have been naked under the sheets together while doing so. It would have been cozy, calm and efficient. Hux’s three favorite things.

Before reaching the bathroom accessories area they become entrapped in a world of rugs and chairs from which Ren seems unwilling to entangle himself. He pauses to consider every fucking rug in the place, though rugs are not on the list. 

“Yeah, but we need rugs,” Ren says, looking at Hux like he’s crazy for doubting this. 

“Do we, though? The whole place is carpeted.” 

“The kitchen isn’t.” 

“You want a rug in the fucking kitchen?” 

“Yeah, like, you know. Those mats you put down. Like, near the sink.” 

“Then why are you looking at an enormous floor rug with zebra stripes?” 

“I thought it would be cool in the living room. Or maybe the bedroom.” 

“There’s no space for that thing in the bedroom! Can we please just progress to bath mats?” 

“What is your obsession with bath mats? Chill, okay? At least it’s quiet over here.” 

There are less people around, but something about the rugs themselves, the sheer quantity and variety of them, feels loud to Hux, especially after having waded through chair selections for what felt like an hour only to make zero actual decisions. Everything Hux liked, which wasn’t much, was deemed too expensive. Everything Ren was willing to settle for looked too flagrantly like utter garbage to Hux, craftsmanship-wise.

“You don’t come to IKEA for craftsmanship,” according to Ren. 

Hux knows this is true, but now that he’s here, confronted with the threadbare reality of it, he’s sweating under his clothes with something that feels like regret. At the same time, he feels very cold. Ren holds up a kitchen mat with colorful stripes and Hux nods hurriedly, ready to agree to anything as long as they can just move forward. 

“Do you really like it?” Ren asks. “Or are you just saying so?”

“Why would I lie about something so trivial? It’s fine!”

“Yeah, but maybe it’s too bright, I kinda like that one with the squares--”

“If you like the one with the squares, why are you considering this other one? Honestly, fuck, how do you even survive with this inability to make a simple decision about anything?” 

“Okay.” Ren drops the striped mat back onto the stack of them that he pulled it from. “You’re freaking out.” 

“Don’t tell me what I’m doing! I’m the one behaving rationally while you’re determined to waste the whole day here, after promising we’d be through in an hour. It’s like you’re purposefully trying to torture me!”

Again, Hux didn’t hear the volume of his voice as it rose and rose, and now it’s too late. Some people who were passing into the rug area are staring at Hux as they quickly head in another direction. Ren exhales slowly, and Hux has to avert his eyes. He doesn’t want to bear witness to the moment when Ren’s tentative fondness for anything beyond Hux’s tight ass dissolves at last into disappointment with the overall wreck of a person Hux has become, post-corporate fraud charges. 

“Okay,” Ren says, walking to Hux. He takes hold of Hux’s wrist and pulls. They’re moving away from the rugs, at least. “Come on. You need a time out.” 

Hux doesn’t dare ask what that means. He feels like he might either throw a punch or burst into tears, something which he hasn’t done since the day of his sentencing, when he received the news that he wouldn’t have to serve time with piercing relief that was quickly swallowed up by dread of his now blank future. 

On that day, he’d done his pitiful, private sobbing a stall in the men’s room at the courthouse, while his lawyer took a piss at the urinals and shouted about how they should go out for a beer to celebrate. Incidentally, Ren is taking him into a bathroom now, only this one has no stalls or urinals. It’s a small room outfitted in IKEA-style luxury, with bamboo cabinets and a single toilet, a fake ficus and a taupe rug that Hux actually rather likes. Even the lighting is tasteful, especially for a megastore bathroom, and every item except the toilet has a label with a price tag on it. Ren bolts the door behind them. 

“I like this rug,” Hux mutters, toeing it. He looks up when Ren looms into his personal space. 

“Are you okay?” Ren asks, gently enough to irritate Hux a bit. 

“I’m fine,” Hux says, though he isn’t and Ren can clearly tell. “I just-- I’m having a hard time-- Since the trial, sometimes--”

“Shh, I know, c’mere.” 

At least he didn’t call Hux ‘baby.’ For this mercy, Hux allows Ren to pull him into a tight hug. Hux slumps against Ren’s chest and tries to breathe normally. He rests his cheek on Ren’s shoulder, closes his eyes, and lets the sex-tinged smell of Ren’s skin wrap around him like a comforting blanket of better memories: this morning, their sleepy fuck on the dirty sheets, Ren whispering _baby_ in Hux’s ear as if he was impressed by how Hux had folded himself almost in two for Ren’s cock, with his feet touching the wall behind the bed while Ren sunk into him again and again and again, slow enough to make Hux whimper and beg, and sweet enough that he didn’t mind much when he only got that soft _baby_ in response, rather than the pounding he was asking for. 

“Jesus,” Hux says, his voice muffled against Ren’s shirt. “What’s become of me? How can you stand this? I’m sorry, I don’t know-- It’s like I can’t do anything anymore.” 

Hux regrets saying so immediately. So far with Ren he’s dodged the truth about how much his arrest and legal ordeal still affect him, at least as much as possible. He jokes about it, and Ren smiles with approval, haha, what a laugh that unpleasantness was, now shall we fuck again so that neither of us has to think about the fact that we’re someday going to need to find jobs? 

Ren says nothing, just continues holding Hux and stroking his back. He was drawn to the comic tragedy of Hux early on, after they got to talking about the state of Hux’s life, four or five fucks into their initial gluttonous marathon. Ren appreciates everything romantic and morbid, especially when the two are combined, and Hux can’t deny that he has come to embody both, at least in Ren’s view. Poor young, impressionable intern Hux, seduced into a life of white collar crime by President Snoke of First Order Incorporated, trapped there until nearly his mid-thirties and almost successfully made into a scapegoat by that vile old crook who is now in prison, probably being treated better than he deserves. Snoke always had a frightening talent for using his seeming frailty to his advantage. Meanwhile, Hux is free but unemployable. Ren calls himself an artist, but he doesn’t really do anything beyond living off an inheritance left to him by his grandfather, a once-renowned actor who became an infamous B-movie hack after an incident during which he may or may not have tried to strangle his wife in Volcanoes National Park, when she was eight and half months pregnant, on their honeymoon. There is drama flowing through Ren’s very blood, and he laps hungrily at every taste of Hux’s stale drama that he can get, which is another reason Hux has to fear that Ren has fallen in love with perhaps some parts of him but not the whole. 

“You’re trembling,” Ren says, his voice so soft against Hux’s ear that it makes him shiver even more noticeably. “Hux.” Ren pulls back to look at him. Hux braces himself for the drop. He’s never been dumped before. He’s always been the one trying to flee something like this: feelings, intimacy, cohabitation. “You don’t have to do this,” Ren says, looking down. “If you don’t really want to.” 

“Do what?”

Ren scoffs. “You don’t have to live with me,” he says, eyes flashing. “And pick out furniture with me, and-- You’re obviously not into it.” 

“What? No, I am.”

“Yeah, clearly.” 

“No, Ren, please-- I love it.” Hux holds onto Ren’s elbows to keep him close, though he’s afraid of what he might say next. “I mean it, I just-- I love being with you, having you always there. It’s made me feel better than I have since-- Well, ever.” 

“But you hate everything about me.” 

“What! How could you-- What the hell gave you that idea?”

“Uh, everything you say?”

“No-- What, why-- When? About cacti?”

Ren smiles then, despite himself. Hux wonders if he’s going to have to blurt a proper love confession here, in a fucking IKEA bathroom, and he’s relieved when Ren kisses him before he can. Hux deepens the kiss so that they won’t have to continue the conversation, and moans into Ren’s mouth as he’s backed up against the bamboo cabinets that frame the sink. He chooses not to think about how typical this is for them: every time some discussion gets too real, they fuck. This pattern always seems like an important consideration for a later time. Presently, Hux groans with approval when Ren’s big hand slips down into the back of his pants and past the waistband of his underwear, and again when Ren squeezes his left ass cheek hard. 

“So you want to keep shopping?” Ren asks, his eyes dark when his face hovers over Hux’s, big fingers still clutched tightly around the flesh of Hux’s ass. 

“I-- yes.” Hux is hardening in his pants, feeling tight and ready all over, his legs spreading when Ren’s thigh slides up between them. 

“But you need to calm down first,” Ren says. He leans in to nip at Hux’s ear, breathes hotly against it. “Don’t you?”

“Yes?” 

“You’re getting all uptight, aren’t you?”

“I’m not--” 

“Need me to get in there and work that tight ass open? Get you all loose and sweet and willing?”

“Fuh--” Part of Hux wants to tell him he’s mad for suggesting such a thing in their present location, but then again. “Yes, please-- Ren--” 

“Shh, I know what you need. Pass me that lotion.” 

Hux turns dazedly to peer at the toiletries lined up near the sink, each of them sporting an IKEA price tag. He passes the one labeled DRAGAN-- LOTION DISP. into Ren’s hand, wondering what sort of cheap, off-brand lotion it’s filled with. It smells nice anyway, like lavender. It will almost certainly leave behind a lavender-scented sting, but Hux can’t bring himself to care as Ren slips two slicked fingers back down into his pants, along the crack of his ass. He just needs Ren, needs this-- Needs Ren to know exactly what to do, so that Hux can turn off his brain and forget about everything but how good and well-handled he feels. 

A tiny voice in Hux’s head whispers something like, _you’re still doing this? Five months later?_ And: _How much longer do you really think this can go on?_

Then Ren spreads Hux’s ass cheeks and dips one slick finger in to tease at the tenderness left by their long fuck this morning, and that voice is stamped out in the usual fashion, beneath a low moan that Hux keeps as quiet a possible, burying the sound of it against Ren’s throat. 

“So tight,” Ren murmurs, his mouth still pressed to Hux’s ear as he rubs his finger in slow circles, just the tip nudging inside. “Relax, that’s good, just breathe.”

“Deeper,” Hux begs, not wanting to spend overlong getting fucked in an IKEA bathroom. “Please, Ren-- _Yes_ , yeah, unh--”

He presses himself back onto Ren’s finger, flushing all the way down to his chest because he’s behaving like this _again_ , letting himself become a true degenerate. Ren kisses him, and it’s a relief to open his mouth for Ren, to surrender more and more and have nothing left that isn’t held firmly in Ren’s hands. Hux squeezes around Ren’s finger, sucks on his tongue, pants against his lips. Sometimes he suspects that his initial attraction to Ren was a twisted result of his fear, all throughout his trial, that he would end up in prison and be subject to attacks from large, tattooed men. Then Ren showed up at that bar, large and covered with tattoos that creep down over his massive arms and span his wide shoulders, and he’s insatiable, just like Hux, who has never been this willing for anyone. He’s beyond willing-- He’s desperate, keening and begging for another finger, then for Ren’s cock when two of his thick fingers still don’t feel like enough.

“Didn’t need to bother with fingers, did I?” Ren asks, opening his belt with his free hand. “You’re so well-fucked every day now. Trained for my dick. Ready for me anywhere.” 

“Yes,” Hux says, practically drooling. He turns around to present his ass fully, shoving his pants down. “Please-- I need it--” 

“I know you do.” Ren’s huge hands slide onto his ass cheeks, spreading him open. Hux leans over the counter, onto his elbows, and groans when he imagines the view Ren has of his lotion-slick, worked open hole, still pinked from their fuck this morning. “Look at you,” Ren says, dragging his thumb over it. “So ready to take me. Such a good boy for me when you’re itching to have that little hole stretched open wide.” 

Hux snorts and bucks backward. He has mixed feelings about being called a ‘boy’ by someone four years younger than him. Some self-loathing, repressed thing within him must find it hot, because his cock leaks against the bamboo cabinets, but it’s also what Snoke called Hux when he tried to pass the blame. _That boy_ , though Hux was thirty-three when the charges were filed. 

“What if I left you here like this while I did the rest of our shopping?” Ren asks, teasing his cockhead over Hux’s hole. “Hmm?” 

“You wouldn’t,” Hux says, pressing back. He doesn’t say, _You’re far too protective of me for anything like that. Aren’t you?_

“No? You don’t think I’d leave you in here so I could take my time? Leave you crying and needy and stuffing your fingers into yourself, waiting for me to come back and make you full?” 

“Please.” Hux isn’t sure what Ren wants to hear. Ren is still holding Hux apart with both hands, still just teasing him with slick slides of his cock. “Please, please--” 

“Somebody else might come by. Might see you like this, left in here all hot and ready. They might be willing to fill in for me, get your hole all sloppy and dripping with come, the way you like it.” 

There’s something heavy in this that Hux doesn’t have the presence of mind to unwrap. He folds his arms on the countertop and whines, wiping the wet corner of his mouth on his forearm. 

“Ren,” Hux says. “Please, I need you, need it--”

“You need to get fucked?” 

“I need _you_ , please, yes--” 

“Do you need me, Hux? Or do you need this?”

He shoves in then, all the way to the hilt in one swift push, and Hux has to bite his wrist to hold back his scream. It doesn’t hurt, after being worked open long and slow this morning, but it’s a lot, all at once, and he’s shaking when he feels Ren’s balls resting against his wide-split ass. 

“Ren,” he says, weakly. He feels like he’s being asked some question, but his mind is too fuzzy to tell. “Ren, Ren--” 

“What, Hux?” Ren pulls back just a bit before shunting in hard, pushing a gurgled exclamation from Hux. “What do you need. I want you to tell me. Be specific.” 

“Need to-- ah. Feel you, need you to fill me up--”

“I’ve done that.” Ren shunts in again, to demonstrate. “What else?”

“Ah-- I don’t know--” Hux shakes his head, rolls his hips. “Punish me.” 

“Punish you?”

“Yes, I-- Was bad. Out there, in the store.” In so many ways, really. “I need you to show me-- What I am. What I’m good for.”

Again, this feels like some long suppressed conversation that is happening without his permission, though he’s the one mewling out these requests while speared on Ren’s cock, twitching around his width in beseeching pulses.

“What you’re good for,” Ren says. He pronounces this slowly, sounding as if he took that as some kind of insult directed at him. Apparently he’s been taking a lot of things that way, this whole time. 

“For you,” Hux says, squeezing around him. He lifts his head and looks back at Ren, shows Ren his red, begging, pitiful face. “Punish that hole, leave me raw and filthy, go on.” 

Hux doesn’t know what the fuck he’s saying; he’s terrible at dirty talk, though he’s been trying to pick it up based on Ren’s enthusiastic examples. He certainly likes hearing it, and would like to participate, but it’s like the American colloquialisms he could never quite master. Even if he uses them correctly, they don’t sound right, coming from him. 

“If I really wanted to punish you,” Ren says. “I’d leave you empty.” 

“I am empty,” Hux says, though Ren is deep inside him and holding him open wide. “Without you, I-- Fuck, Ren, please? Please!” 

Hux puts his head down again. His shoulders are shaking. His legs are, too, especially his thighs. When Ren pulls out, Hux is afraid he’ll disconnect completely and demand that they have a serious chat. Even the near loss of him makes Hux sob softly against his arm, but Ren only pauses there, holding Hux open around his cockhead for one long exhale before shoving back in. 

Someone rattles the doorknob and Hux clenches up around Ren, terrified. Ren just grunts and drops low over Hux before continuing, gripping Hux’s hips and thrusting hard. Hux reaches over to turn the sink on at full blast to mask the noise of their skin slapping together. He imagines getting caught, being arrested for this, thus violating his probation and ending up in jail, and only then does he understand, in the midst of being fucked over a creaking IKEA sink, how much he really has to lose, how much he _has_. Ren’s sad eyes and strange tenderness, long mornings spent hiding in Ren’s arms and evenings of drinking too much bad wine at Ren’s friends’ embarrassing art shows, the nights they’ve stayed up talking how lonely they both were as children without ever needing to say so explicitly,   _baby_ and browsing and Ren’s perfect, enormous hands holding Hux tight while he gets pounded just the way he asked to be, just the way he needs.

“Ren,” Hux says, lifting up onto his elbows. Ren is breathing hard through his nose, always a sign that he’s close. “I need to-- Need to tell you--” 

“What’s wrong, baby?” Ren asks, his voice a deep rumble at the rim of Hux’s ear and his hips still pumping, making Hux arch and moan in answer, because that fucking endearment sounds so different when Ren is this deep inside him.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Hux says, crying it out like an epiphany. “Nothing, nothing, oh--” 

“Shhhhh,” Ren says. He puts his hand between Hux’s shoulderblades and presses until Hux lies down with his chest flat on the counter. “Almost there. Be good, get ready. _Yeah_ \-- Milk it out, baby, just like that, here it comes--” 

Hux goes off against the cabinets when Ren pins him there with the force of his orgasm, Ren’s hand still spread open on Hux’s back. It feels like being crushed nearly flat by Ren’s pleasure, and for whatever reason it’s so, so good. Ren breathes heavily through his climax, huffing just behind Hux’s ear. Hux muffles whatever sounds he made against his fist, or anyway hopes that he did. He didn’t even come so hard this morning, after what felt like an hour of teasing and edging. There’s just something about being told to lie down and take it that he was craving, or is always craving, or wants only from Ren, more like. 

“Stay,” Ren murmurs when Hux tries to shift, to get up and clean himself and return to the startling reality of their present surroundings. 

Hux is glad to deflate again, his cheek pressed to the countertop and his eyes closed, Ren’s spent cock still deep inside him. He groans as softly as he can when Ren pulls out, and sucks his breath back in when he feels Ren spreading him, letting the first globs of his come leak out and slide down over Hux’s balls. Hux is not quite surprised when he feels Ren lapping at his hole, licking up the mess, but he gasps anyway, with his fist against his mouth, over and over. 

He’s half hard again by the time Ren is done, and also half asleep. When Ren helps him to sit up against the counter, Hux doesn’t hesitate to tug Ren forward by his t-shirt and kiss him on the mouth, with tongue, tasting a lingering hint of everything. 

“Dirty little fucker,” Ren mutters fondly, stroking Hux’s cheekbone with his thumb. “So bad, letting me bend you over in public.” 

“Not public,” Hux says, glancing at the door. It’s still bolted, no one rattling the knob now. “Not quite, anyway,” he says when he slides his gaze back to Ren’s. Hux’s face is very hot, and it probably will be until they leave this place. Walking through the aisles, he’ll feel like everyone heard, like they all know. It’s a bit thrilling, actually, and Ren’s soft touch on his face feels good, a pleasant contrast to the raw mess Ren made of his ass. 

“Here,” Ren says, reaching down to pull Hux’s pants up. “Let’s make you decent. Gonna be good for me now? Gonna be patient and calm, now that you’ve been tended to?”

“Mhmm.” Hux rubs at his face and yawns as Ren zips up his jeans for him, giving Hux’s softening cock a pat once it’s tucked away. “Ren?” 

“Yeah?”

“I really do want to live with you.” 

“Okay.” Ren is straightening his hair, looking in the mirror and avoiding Hux’s eyes. 

“You don’t believe me?” 

Ren shrugs. 

“Even though you’re enabling my descent into sex addiction,” Hux says, trying to make a joke of it, since Ren clearly doesn’t want to talk.

It was obviously the wrong joke. Ren’s face hardens. His shoulders slump, and he jerks away when Hux reaches for him. 

“What?” Hux says, trying to laugh. “We just fucked in an IKEA bathroom. It’s--”

“I thought we were fucking a lot because that’s what happens when you’re crazy in love with someone.” Ren is staring at his own reflection, glowering. “Because I’ve never-- Been that, before you, but I guess it’s just bullshit to you.” 

“No, hey--” 

“I’d never stayed in bed with someone for three days, Hux.”

“Well, neither had I, before--”

“I’ve never stopped myself from asking someone to marry me by blurting that we should move in together. Don’t call me a fucking sex addict. This is real for me, you little shit.”

“Ren.” Hux feels a new flush of heat rising to his cheeks. He pushes off the counter and swoons toward Ren, who grabs Hux’s wrists but also lets Hux lift both hands to his face. 

“But I’m just a big dick to you,” Ren says, flinching against the brush of Hux’s fingertips. “Just something to punish yourself with.” 

“You know that’s not true.” 

“How the hell would I know that.” 

“Because I let you drag me to so many browsing avenues, for months, before I told you that I don’t like to window shop. But I went along with it because I wanted to be with you, because just walking around aimlessly and perusing crap stores was still better than anything else I might have done with my time, as long as you were there. Do you think I often let people who’ve had their tongue up my arse kiss me on the mouth? Or that I’ve ever loved someone so much that I let them call me _baby_ , before you?” 

“What’s wrong with baby?” Ren asks, mumbling. He rests his forehead against Hux’s, still holding Hux’s wrists, pressing Hux’s hands against his cheeks. 

“It’s awful,” Hux says. “And so are old record shops, and fucking indie craft fairs, and this horrid nightmare of a store, but I don’t care, even if I’m complaining. I just want you to listen to my complaints, all right? I just want to be with you, wherever, always, all the time, but mostly in our little house together. I love that house so much, Ren, I’ll love it even if you carpet it in hideous zebra rugs--” 

Ren kisses him again, and this time it doesn’t feel like an excuse to end the conversation. It’s more like a wordless continuation, deep and honest and real. Hux tips his head back, opens every part of himself to it, lets Ren lick along the points of his teeth and suck softly at his lips. They keep at it even when the doorknob is rattled twice more. 

When they finally emerge, after splashing cold water onto their faces to dampen the flush of sex and the fizzy thrill of confession, a chubby man in a Packers jersey is standing outside. He looks like he’s going to complain, then he takes in Ren’s size and height and the thickness of his tattooed arms. The man shrugs as if conceding a point.

“This is the nicest bathroom in IKEA,” he says, pointing. 

“Enjoy,” Ren says, and he pulls Hux away by the hand. 

The rest of their time in IKEA feels a bit dreamy and surreal, and Hux doesn’t complain when Ren deliberates endlessly over glassware. Hux picks the bath mat himself, a somewhat hideous blue one that is wonderfully soft and fluffy, its texture making up for what it lacks in appearance. Ren grabs a 100-pack of votive candles and several new votive candleholders. He’s a fan of lighting candles during sex, something which Hux finds ridiculous but also loves very dearly, like most of what Ren has introduced into his life. In the warehouse, Ren hoists boxes of unassembled furniture onto their cart with ease. Hux catches several people staring at Ren during this process and feels proud of himself in public for the first time in close to a year, like he’s made some good life choices after all, and he is here to be smug about it in an IKEA warehouse, why not.

At home, they pile everything in the various rooms where it belongs, to be assembled after Hux has had a bath. Taking baths with scented oils is another thing Hux never did before Ren, and he still feels somewhat asinine for indulging in it, but not enough to resist the calm it brings him, especially after he’s just returned home from some hectic errand. Ren can’t fit in the tub with him, so he sits beside it on the floor, scrolling through social media crap on his phone and showing Hux anything that’s funny, in Ren’s opinion. Hux tries not to grunt too dismissively when he doesn’t share Ren’s amusement. 

“Have you any interest in real houseplants?” Hux asks when Ren has abandoned the phone to dip his hand into the water and tease at Hux’s flushed skin here and there. What Hux really wants to ask is, _were you actually going to ask me to marry you, after just five months?_ But he already knows the answer and doesn’t want to gloat.

“Real houseplants,” Ren repeats, sounding as if he doesn’t understand the question, possibly because he’s distracted by the way Hux’s nipples have peaked for him.

“Yes, you know, cacti or otherwise. I’d prefer the real thing to those plastic ones you were looking at earlier.” 

“Sure,” Ren says. He rolls Hux’s left nipple between his thumb and forefinger and grins when he hears Hux’s almost-swallowed gasp. “I want to make you a zen garden,” Ren says, looking suddenly very serious.

“Fine,” Hux says, arching up toward his hand. 

“It’ll be an art piece, too. I’ve been thinking about this. I’ve got a design worked up, it’s kind of an avant garde zen garden, but still relaxing.”

“Sounds glorious,” Hux says. Ren looks at him suspiciously, checking his expression for sarcasm. “I mean it,” Hux says, drawing Ren’s face toward his. “I want to live in your art piece garden, darling. I can be part of your mixed media.” 

“Darling,” Ren says. He smirks. 

Hux flushes. He said it without thinking, without even really realizing he had. He opens his mouth to defend himself, but Ren kisses him before he can explain his affection away. It’s just as well: there’s nothing rational about it, anyhow. 

 

**

**Author's Note:**

> A prequel to this story is now [available here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11174475)!!


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